One of the biggest challenges facing the deployment of smart grids is inadequate consumer education, which is in some cases is worsened by "over-hyping" the benefits of the smart grid. This general consensus came from UTC Smart Grid Policy Summit, a two-day conference held this week in Washington, DC that featured panel discussions with key policy makers, regulators, utilities and industry associations. While the panels debated issues such as the role of state vs. federal regulators in setting smart grid policy and the pressures of cost-recovery, many of the panels often returned to the need for consumer awareness and trust. Opening Keynote Speaker, Joe Rigby, CEO and Chairman of PEPCO, addressed this concern by discussing his utility's successful pilot programs that were implemented in collaboration with state regulators and consumer groups and showed that consumers do respond positively to dynamic pricing. However, he did note that duplicating the results of a pilot in a larger territory roll-out was not easy. Read more »

The May issue of MissionCritical Communications magazine will feature my article discussing the similarities in the ongoing analysis of broadband requirements currently underway by both utilities and public safety. Both groups are actively reviewing use cases that describe specific communications events in order to determine bandwidth, reliability and security requirements for a nationwide broadband network.

We would like to encourage you to browse the May issue of MissionCritical Communications and read this article on page 22. Click here. You are also invited to subscribe to MissionCritical Communications magazine, the leading information resource on wireless voice and data solutions for mission-critical operations. For a FREE subscription, click here: 

(Washington, DC) UTC's Smart Grid Policy Summit wrapped up here today with two panels that centered on the ultimate factor shaping the future of the smart grid: the consumer. Nothing will happen until consumers learn about the smart grid and how it might help them.

"Education, education, education of consumers," New York Public Service Commissioner Maureen Harris said. "It's all of our responsibility to simplify what we can do for consumers." Read more »

(Washington, DC) As smart grid technologies take hold, two key technical challenges, maintaining consumer privacy and network security, will require constant diligence by utilities, experts told attendees today at UTC's Smart Grid Policy Summit. "I've told people to focus on what is unique to the smart grid," National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Senior Cyber Security Strategist Annabelle Lee said. NIST is charged with developing cyber security requirements that will be adopted as industry requirements by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

"The difference with the smart grid is the granularity of the information," she said. "The functionality will not change with the smart grid. We'll still get electricity and a bill every month." Read more »

(Washington, DC) UTC's Smart Grid Policy Summit got down to brass tacks during its closing panel today, with industry and government speakers taking on the core questions dogging utilities for decades: will utilities gain access to dedicated spectrum and when? John Holt, President and Business Manager, Local 1900 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, underscored the importance of spectrum to utilities by walking through the confusion that can reign among utility workers using cobbled–together communications systems during emergency response situations.

Using the recent record-breaking snowstorm in Washington as a backdrop, Holt said that main and auxiliary field workers looking to restore service "are using Nextel [land mobile radios] talking to each other and quite frankly they're walking all over each other. Then we bring in foreign [other utilities'] crews and they're probably on a different network. So we take [our] crews who know what they're doing and we split them up to go with the foreign crews.

At the same time we're all talking to each other on the cell phones. In Washington there are intentional dead zones where they scramble the signal so I got a guy in the White House and I can’t talk to him." Read more »

(Washington, DC) The economic and efficiency benefits of the smart grid could prove a boon to the local communities across America, especially if broadband networks expand to reach into rural areas and the costs of the smart grid are carefully weighed by regulators, according to experts on community development speaking at UTC's Smart Grid Policy Summit here today.

"We have never seen anything like smart grid," Glenn Steiger, General Manager, Glendale Water and Power said. Despite a string of benefits that smart grid technology deliver to the utility, the community is the biggest winner. "We're very excited to help the rest of our city in partnership. This is not just a utility program but a citywide program," he said. Read more »

(Washington, DC) The utility industry is poised at the intersection of energy and broadband as it builds smart grids, a key Administration technology official said today here at UTC's Smart Grid Policy Summit. "This is ground zero," Andrew McLaughlin, Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer, Executive Office of the President told Summit attendees.

"The fusion of information flows with the electrical system is one of the great transformations that we will see over the next several decades," McLaughlin said. Government should avoid a top-down approach when it comes to smart grid, he advised. "The strength of the U.S. system is decentralized processes." Read more »

(Washington, DC) Smart grids are about to bring forth a technological revolution that could eclipse those generated by the divestiture of AT&T or even the advent of the Internet, government leaders said here today at UTC's Smart Grid Policy Summit.

"Brace yourselves," Philip Moeller, Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner, said. The smart grid could be even more transformative than the break-up of AT&T twenty-five years ago, he contended. "That was kind of like unleashing the hounds of hell. The system was broken and people hated it. They hated having choices. They hated having one bill. But they got over it." Read more »

(Washington, DC) Smart grids will drive our national energy policy but policy makers agree that federal and state regulators need to collaborate not only with one another but also with the utility industry to ensure energy savings and efficiencies are realized from smart grid deployments. Kicking off UTC's Smart Grid Policy Summit here today, UTC CEO Bill Moroney noted that "too many of us were talking past one another and not with one another."

Keynote speaker Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner John Norris emphasized that coordination of efforts among all energy players is needed to lay the foundation for smart grid evolution. "There needs to be a sequence of development in terms of smart grid technologies. We need to coordinate the roll out of technologies to ensure that consumers see the benefit," Norris said. Read more »